Parents seeking chicken pox lollipops on Facebook

A pox pop: Would you give your child a lollipop infected with the chicken pox virus? (shutterstock)

While most parents go to great lengths to keep their children healthy, a small percentage are taking steps to get their kids sick.

This week a CBS affiliate in Phoenix, Ariz., uncovered a Facebook group called “Find a Pox Party in Your Area” where parents can “ask if anyone with a child who has the chicken pox would be willing to send saliva, infected lollipops or clothing through the mail.”

These parents opt to forgo the chicken pox vaccine and are looking to infect their children with the virus so they obtain natural immunity.

A small but growing number of parents are deciding to skip or delay vaccines for their young children. A 2009 survey found that about 11 percent of parents refuse at least one vaccine. Most parents skip or delay vaccines out of concern about serious adverse side effects. Their fear of vaccines is often based on a 1998 paper published in the Lancet journal by British scientist Andrew Wakefield correlating MMR (an immunization shot against measles, mumps and rubella) with autism. The paper, which surveyed only 12 children, has since been discredited by doctors across the globe, and the Lancet has since retracted the paper for falsified data and unscientific methods.

Some parents also feel that there are now too many vaccines and that children’s immune systems are weakening because they’re no longer fighting off viruses such as the chicken pox. Their thinking is that getting a virus gives the system a workout and builds strength. These parents might specifically skip the chicken pox vaccine and actively try to expose their children to the virus because they figure that they survived it as a child and everyone else they grew up with lived through it.

If you’re a member of a parenting Yahoo group or have spent a lot of time on Craiglist, maybe you’ve seen posts about chicken pox parties, where parents invite unvaccinated children to come play with their kid whose covered in pox spots. Lollipops might be shared and passed around to help spread the virus. (I’ve seen these posts in San Francisco where I live.)

The Pox Party Facebook page, which was pulled after the news segment ran, was also a place to advertise pox parties. But mainly parents were using it to mail around contaminated material. CBS noted a few of the posts on the page’s wall:

One post reads: “I got a Pox Package in mail just moments ago. I have two lollipops and a wet rag and spit.”

A mom chimes in: “This is a federal offense to intentionally mail a contagion.”

Another woman offers up some advice, “Tuck it inside a zip lock baggy and then put the baggy in the envelope 🙂 Don’t put anything identifying it as pox.”

Experts were quick to criticize the chicken pox Facebook page.

“If you have a young child over to your house specifically to get chicken pox, I don’t think anyone would like to really consider what would happen if that child ended up being hospitalized,” Elizabeth Jacobs from the University of Arizona College of Public Health, told CBS.